1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to information processing and, more particularly, to an information processing device, control method, and storage medium for a device operated by touch operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
A device with a graphical user interface (hereinafter referred to as a “GUI”) is gaining priority. A GUI allows a user to touch a touchscreen, with a touch sensing function and a display function, to perform operations. The touch screen is hereinafter simply referred to as “screen”. Also, in recent years, the touch operation has become common in devices with reduced size and weight such as smart phones and the like. The touch operation is performed through the user's touch (contact) to the GUI object displayed on the screen. The GUI object includes graphics, characters, images and the like. In doing so, the user may support the device and perform the touch operation to touch the screen with one hand. In one-hand operation, mostly, the user supports the device with the palm and performs the touch operation to touch the screen with the thumb. This, however, causes a situation where, as compared to the normal time, the user find it difficult to move the thumb as he intended, since the operation is performed while keeping support of the device. This results in a problem that a malfunction caused by an accidental touch is likely to occur.
To this problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2012-113745 discloses a mobile terminal device, in which position of the base of the finger is identified based on the configuration of the contacting surface made by the user's touch to the screen, and then, the display content of GUI is changed in accordance with the position identified. With this mobile terminal device, the GUI object is not displayed on the area closer to the base of the finger or on the area where is away so that the finger is difficult to reach. Therefore, the user is allowed to operate the GUI in a comfortable position.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2009-169820 discloses a mobile terminal, in which, when the user touches a sensor provided on a right edge upper area of the device and a sensor provided on a left edge upper area of the device, the user identifies whether the operation is one-hand operation with the right hand, one-hand operation with the left hand, or operation with both hands. Based on the identification, the display content of the GUI is changed. With this mobile terminal, in a case where, for example, the operation is performed with the right hand, button object is placed facing to the right. Further, in a case where the operation is performed with the left hand, button object is displayed facing to the left. This allows the object to be located in a position closer to the base of the finger, which eliminates the need for forcedly stretching the finger.
A malfunction, which may occur when one-hand operation is performed, is that, when the user tries to touch the GUI object displayed at a position away from the thumb, the skin of the base of the thumb may accidentally touch the screen before the tip of the finger touches the screen. According to the technologies disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Nos. 2012-113745 and 2009-169820, this kind of problem can be solved by moving the GUI object at a position closer to the base of the finger. This, however, leaves following problems.
According to the mobile terminal device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2012-113745, since the position of the base of the finger is identified based on the configuration of the contacting surface of the finger, it becomes necessary to update the position information of the base by touching the screen beforehand every time the user changes support state of the device.
Further, according to the mobile terminal disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2009-169820, the user is required to set the support state of the device by previously touching the sensor provided at a position away from a position at which the device is held.